Catching up on my Philadelpia reading: Fumo and Bevilacqua

As regular readers may remember, I spent a number of years in Philadelphia (1983-1994), with a few absences. I went to college there, law school there, had my first full-time, regular, job there; and did some politics for both the Democrats, and towards the end, Republicans. I was involved in religion through both the Roman Catholic Church, and, later, the Episcopal Church.

So in writing about Temple University, I did some surfing to find out what has been going on in Philadelphia since the mid 1990’s. Man! How the world turns!

The major religious figure of the city, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, is now said to have been an autocrat whose main task (not accomplishment) was covering up a major sex-abuse scandal involving some Philadelphia clergy.

The most influential politician, former state Senator Vincent Fumo, is now sitting in the federal pokey in Kentucky, having been convicted of 137 counts of everything from corruption to mail and wire fraud, involving amounts into the millions.

I suppose this was all out on the internet as it was going down, it never dawned on me to see what was up in Philly. I wrote the city off a long time ago.

United States v. Vincent Fumo appellate brief (“First step” appellate brief for the United States of America.) Zauzmer & Pease, Esqs., July 8, 2010. For an account of ex-state senator Fumo’s many crimes, for which U.S. District Judge Burkholder Buckwalter gave him a relatively light sentence compared to many other criminals.]